My Partner's Heart
by crocious
Summary: How many bullets does it take to get to the center of The Batman? Quite a lot actually. I think that's the only joke I have for you about this plot. When a still wounded Superman meets Batman after a late night firefight, he realizes the depth of Bruce's sacrifice- and the breadth of his love. Rated M for a slash scene and maybe a survivor trigger for description of battle wounds.
1. Chapter 1

**Hiya.**

 **So it turns out I am SuperBat trash. I dunno how or why that happened, especially since I hate Batman with the biggest rage boner that's ever graced this planet. I'm also very set on avoiding all work in the world, including and especially the fics I have going and should be finishing instead of introducing a new piece. But at least this one is finished. I'll upload the other two chapters in an moment.**

 **-Cro**

When Clark Kent finally woke up, it was to harsh sunlight piercing through his super-sensitive eyelids. He groaned and smashed his freezing pillow to his face, arguing to himself that he'd earned a late morning, or even, he thought hopefully, a day off. Journalists don't get days off, and neither, for that matter, do superheroes.

Superman stubbornly clenched his eyes closed, but one of the reasons he'd flown to his Fortress of Solitude following the Justice League's late-night battle with Lex Luthor was because he knew he'd need the extra kick of the bitter cold to get himself back to work the next day. He thought longingly of the warm, cozy apartment he kept in Metropolis, where after being exposed to as much Kryptonite as he had been, he could draw the curtains tight and sleep off the weakness in his limbs.

But there are no such luxuries for heroes, and being that he was nearly four hundred miles away from a decent cup of coffee, nor arctic dwellers. He groaned and, as resentfully as a good American boy from Smallville, Kansas could, threw himself out of bed.

That the kryptonite poisoning was still not out of his system was obvious when he found himself facedown upon the ice floor of his fortress. How nice a day off would feel on his exhausted muscles! Hypothetically.

But instead of giving into his impulses, Clark carefully pulled his civvies over his fresh, yet temporary, bruises, and gently pulled his Superman suit over those.

It had been a while since Lex Luthor used kryptonite on him. Bruce Wayne made it his business to purchase and control the supply. Once, he sold Luthor a hunk of charcoal painted green. Clark relished the memory of Luthor's face when he discovered the ruse to the tune of alien fists, as he slipped on the ice and crashed to his already bruised knees. He tried to ignore the human pain and leapt into the sky, though he clumsily stumbled on actual thin air.

Flying through Winnipeg, as he neared his favorite Tim Horton's he realized that he'd left his wallet in his Fortress of Solitude- and, patting his chest at the breast pocket under his suit, his glasses.

Stupendous. But Clark Kent knew that he couldn't trust himself to fly back to the North Pole and not fling himself back into bed to curse every Thursday he would ever have to endure again. So he flew on, pointedly speeding up every time he caught the scent of freshly baked croissants with his super nose.

Barely ten minutes had passed since Clark had woken up when he passed Gotham. Gotham was not exactly out of his way, and he thought gently that somewhere in that crime-ridden city slept an exhausted Bruce Wayne, likely bandaged to the neck by his faithful butler after Clark had dropped him off just shy of midnight, bruised and bloodied and stubbornly refusing to feel the wounds from Luthor's dozens of kryptonite-tipped bullets.

Alfred!

Clark often joked with Bruce that Alfred never slept, citing the fact that despite all the odd hours he visited Bruce, or dropped off Batman, he had never once not been greeted with a cup of tea and a cookie or two (Clark refused to call them "biscuits.")

Contemplating this, Superman decided to hang a left and pick up Batman for the damage control meeting the Justice League had called at the Watch Tower this morning.

In no time at all, Clark Kent touched down at the Wayne manor and tapped the knocker politely. It being barely dawn, he didn't worry too much about being seen by nosy citizens. The only ones up in Gotham at this hour were criminals, and it was well that they should see the streak of blue and red soar across Gotham; those that were not cowed by the threat of the Dark Knight were likely to be put off their activities until they watched Superman leave.

But though Superman could hear movement beyond Wayne Manor's magnificent door, no one came to answer. This puzzled Clark- Alfred made it a point never to let a guest wait more than twenty seconds at the door, no matter how many secret passages and high-speed elevators his old bones had to take. Confused, Clark knocked again.

"C'ming," a muffled and pained voice gasped from within. "'M c'ming."

Clark was taken aback. "Alfred? Are you okay?! I'm coming in!"

He ignored the feeble protests and slammed his body against the heavy door, snapping the lock and letting himself in in a panic.

But Alfred was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a hunched figure leaning against a beautifully wrought table in the foyer appraised Superman with annoyance. "I _said_ I was coming," Bruce Wayne groaned.

"Bruce?" Clark asked, dumbfounded. "What are you doing up? You need to get some rest, you need to…" Clark drifted off as his eyes travelled down his friend's body. The bloodied bandages were loose and clumsily wrapped, as if he'd had to apply them himself, and his face was wracked with pain and exhaustion; he's gotten as far last night of taking off his pants, but didn't seem to have gotten to his pajamas yet, said the pinstriped boxers. Instinctively, Clark dashed to Bruce's side and caught him as he stumbled forward.

"Where's Alfred?" Clark asked as he led the scourge of Gotham's underworld inside his mansion. "Is he actually sleeping?"

The joke was ill-received, if it was received at all. "Alfred took some vacation time," Bruce said weakly. "He's in Paris for a few weeks, and I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself." But Clark noted that he didn't try to struggle as Clark repositioned his arm around the wounded waist.

"So you put yourself back together last night?"

Bruce snorted grimly. "Barely."

"Why didn't you tell me you were alone when I dropped you off? I could've stayed, I could've-"

"No," Bruce said shortly, and the image of Batman throwing himself between Superman and Lex Luthor's fatal machine gun flashed, unbidden, into Clark's mind, and mortified, he settled Bruce softly onto the sitting room sofa.

"Would you like some aspirin?" Clark asked gently, trying to convey the only contrition the famous Batman would ever accept. "Coffee?"

"I was just in the middle of preparing the coffee," Bruce grimaced, but as he struggled to stand up, Clark pushed him firmly back down.

"I can get it," he insisted.

"But you don't know how to use a French press."

"I'll figure it out. If Flash can manage it, I don't think I should be worried." He let the joke about Flash and his passion for caffeine in all its various forms hang in the air, but Bruce Wayne let it fall dead as he closed his eyes against a fresh wave of pain.

"And then we'll see about getting you properly bandaged up," Clark added, hesitating before heading to the massive kitchen to find his partner a little relief.


	2. Chapter 2

**I just realized this is the first M fic I've written in... god, YEARS. Forgive me. Asexuals aren't meant to write yaoi.**

 **-Cro**

"You don't know how to use a French press," Bruce Wayne grimaced, putting his lukewarm cup of grainy coffee back onto its saucer. Clark agreed silently through his flushed cheeks: it was the worst cup of coffee on earth.

"I'll get better," he caught himself protesting. "I just need practice!"

"Don't think you're going to fly by every morning to practice on me." Bruce chuckled weakly before his face twisted in pain.

"Here," Clark said anxiously, proffering a few aspirin. "I'll get you some water."

But Batman took a slow sip of the terrible coffee and threw the pills down his throat.

"Hm," he shrugged at Clark's bewilderment. "I've had worse."

"Come on," Clark said. "You sit up and I'll grab Alfred's first aid kit."

"It's next to the tub in the bathroom down the hall," and Clark felt a stab of realization that Batman, the Batman, had been in too much helpless pain last night to even make it upstairs.

As Bruce struggled upright, Clark rushed down the long, beautiful hall to the bathroom hidden behind a landscape of a Midwestern city. The room was large and ornate, lain with porcelain and crystal and near sparkling, save for a few small puddles of blood leading to the tub, and though he knew it was an invasion of privacy, Clark couldn't help but peer into the beautiful footed bath and see that the pristine porcelain was marred by barely dried pink bloodstains, forming a horrible ring around where Clark could picture Bruce lying in agony, having no one to lie to anywhere within his beautiful home, and Superman beat back a wave of rage that burned behind his eyes. An impatient grunt from the sitting room brought him back to his senses, and snatching the large kit from the floor, he ran back to his best friend.

"Sorry it's such a mess," Bruce panted. "I wasn't expecting company this early."

"You're a better detective than that," Clark reprimanded with false cheerfulness. The image of Batman crumpling to the ground with the force of a dozen bullets intended for Superman's already crippled body crashed through his mind. Knowing even that he owed Batman his life, Superman had left him to wallow in pain, alone and wounded, trusting his care to an absent butler. He'd seen Batman's bulletproof armor in action before and had assumed the blood dripping down his greaves had hidden a scratch. But, then, he'd never seen Batman face that may bullets of that massive caliber, and as he gingerly unbound the bandages wrapping Bruce Wayne's naked torso, he beheld the damage with a horrified gasp.

"It's not as bad as it looks," Bruce said quickly, but Clark couldn't tear his eyes away from the enormous bruises near the size of dinner plates, overlapping in a sickening portrait of purple and green and horrible black. Here at his swollen hip had a bullet been pulled painfully from an ill-dressed and still bleeding wound. Here under his ribs had a bullet passed clean through the layers of armor and Kevlar, deep into his belly where he had cut it out and cauterized the wound himself. And here, most distressingly, had Bruce Wayne deftly yanked a huge, kryptonite-tipped bullet from the center of one of the hideous bruises, right above his heart.

As Clark surveyed the damage in mute shock, he could barely hear Bruce's offhand explanations through the buzzing in his ears. He gripped the bloody cotton tightly, imaginations of a world where Batman had built his armor an inch and a half less thick running through his mind. A world where the bullet that had been easily pulled from his breast had met the Batman's enigmatic heart, and in no world could Clark imagine Superman meeting this tragedy with any less than blind fury, the kind that turns more powerful men than Superman into his own mortal enemies.

"I'm serious, I barely felt this one right here, and it didn't even graze anything important. Clark? What's wrong?"

Presently Clark was pulled out of his dazed reverie, watching Bruce's bare chest thump too quickly, too hard to merit such a casual attitude, and he knew that Bruce was putting on a brave face so as not to worry him, and that broke his heart.

"I'm calling Diana," Clark said. "She always has a jar or two of that Amazonian salve you wanted to patent." Wonder Woman hadn't done this to Batman; Superman had, and how could Bruce accept his help after that? Patting his suit to find he'd also left his cell at home, Clark stood up to get the ancient dial phone across the room.

But Bruce grabbed Clark's wrist. "No," he murmured. "Please don't."

Bruce used the "P" word about as often as "S" word (the very mention of the word "surrender" usually throws Batman into an ages-long rant about justice, such that the Justice League had established and unofficial moratorium on it,) and Clark immediately submitted to the request.

"Okay," he said, pained to see his friend in pain. "Just tell me what to do. Tell me what I can do, Bruce."

And weakly, Bruce pointed to the coffee table on which Clark had abandoned the first aid kit.

Mortified, Clark Kent leapt for the red box and, kneeling at the hunched man's feet, began applying salve to his many, many wounds. He tenderly dabbed the ointment on the darkest bruises first, eliciting a hushed hiss from Bruce. Sympathetic tears sprang to Clark's eyes, and knowing the Batman would want no part of such a gross display of emotion, he leaned over Bruce's unhurt shoulder to gently rub the ointment into the bruises and the exit wound on his back.

Perhaps it was to give Clark an easier angle that Bruce leaned heavily upon his shoulder. But it wasn't in Clark to ignore how close Bruce's labored breath was to his ear, or how hot his bloodied body felt under his hands, and before he could stop himself, Clark was embracing his partner tightly, clearly too hard, for Bruce let out a gasp of pain. Clark loosened his hold, but he wouldn't let go. He saw now how close he had come last night to losing him forever, and his heart thudded sorely in his chest.

Soon, Bruce answered his embrace with an even rougher one, evidently recognizing Clark's silent sobs for what they were, and knowing that he was free to do so.

So ignoring the pain in his arms and his chest, Gotham's Prince clutched Superman to himself in a hold even the legendary Kal-El would have had difficulty breaking, had he the inclination.

"I thought you were gone," Bruce growled, and Superman heard a tear slide slowly down his cheek. "God, Clark, you went down so fast, I thought…"

Clark buried his wet face into the crook of Bruce's neck and shoulder, knowing full well that Batman would only allow such an embarrassing show of intimacy a moment. But the moments passed, and Bruce just gripped him tighter.

Presently, Bruce let out a hiss of pain in Clark's ear and only then did he release his hold, though he was loathe to let go, and press their foreheads together.

"You shouldn't have let me leave Bruce," he whispered. "You should have asked me to stay, I would've. You know that."

Bruce closed his eyes and leaned into Clark quietly.

"You have to let me know," Clark continued agonizingly. "You push yourself so hard and you never let anyone take care of you. Do you think I _want_ you to keep this from me? How long would it have been until you told me how bad you were hurt? Would you have _ever_ let me know?"

"It's a quarter past-"

"I don't care about the damn meeting, Bruce," Clark interrupted almost angrily. "I don't care about anything else right now. Let me care about you, dammit!"

Bruce was struggling. Clark didn't need to use Superman's x-ray vision to know Bruce Wayne's heart was jumping anxiously. He didn't need his super hearing to know his breath was catching on something he wanted desperately to say.

But if one of them was weak, the other would have to make up for it. That was the deal, and Superman had never seen Batman so naked and vulnerable. So he wiped his cheek and started to pick up the slack.

"Deep breath!" he grinned and Batman obliged as Superman taped a large medicated bandage to his waist. Another deep breath and he taped another bandage under his ribs. Another deep breath, but Clark hesitated at the giant ugly wound on Bruce's chest.

"Go ahead," Batman said, almost casually but for his irregular breathing.

"Yeah," Clark shook his head. "Yeah. Deep breath."

One of the things Clark had always found funny about Bruce Wayne was the forest of chest hair he maintained. Every aspect of his life was centered on making Batman as effective, efficient, powerful as he could possibly be. When a mugger had thrown a knife against Bruce Wayne's neck and Superman had to intervene, Batman started wearing Kevlar under his civvies, and when he lost a thief when he almost passed out of exhaustion, Batman started spiking his coffee with experimental drugs Wayne Enterprises was developing. When something affected Batman, Bruce Wayne dropped everything to fix it.

His chest hair, oddly, never seemed to get in the way, which is not what you'd expect of someone whose second skin is bulletproof. But as Clark taped a bandage over Bruce's heart, he realized sadly that this would be the last time he saw Bruce Wayne's thick, black fur; where tape must go, hair must leave.

"May I take a look?" Clark asked as he finished. Batman didn't like that Superman could use x-ray vision without his consent, so he always asked first.

In answer, Batman threw his arms over the back of the couch with a brief hiss of pain, and Superman checked his bones.

"You have three cracked ribs," he said finally, "and your clavicle is bruised."

"Nothing to be done about that," Batman shrugged.

Clark scowled gently. "Except lots of rest and pain medication. I'll take you upstairs after I finish wrapping you up."

Though the kryptonite still coursing through Bruce's veins made Clark weaker than he was comfortable with, he could manage that much at the least.

But Batman's face was pure consternation. "I'd rather stay down here," he groaned as he leaned forward to allow Clark to rub his back with another layer of the icy ointment. "I don't want to go up and downstairs all day."

Clark shook his head. "I'm not letting you move, Bruce. You just tell me what you need and I'll get it for you."

"You're staying?"

"Of course I am! Lean back for me?"

Bruce did, still looking at Clark in shock. "I don't need your help."

"Well, you've got it anyway," Clark smiled, letting his hand linger in the soft, dark hair on Bruce's chest. "Most people would be pretty happy to have Superman at their beck and call, you know."

"Beck _and_ call?" Bruce smirked grimly.

"Anything you want," Clark winked. "I'll rearrange your furniture, I'll make you Ma's onion soup. You want a pet quokka to cuddle with? Give me five minutes."

For a brief moment, Clark thought he was about to see THE Batman laugh. But he forced his tongue into his cheek and grunted a thanks.

Clark unrolled a foot or so of the cloth and began to wrap Bruce's waist in the soft cotton. "It's my pleasure," he smiled softly. Up, up, up went the wrapping, over his bruised shoulder a few times, then down, down, down, until he tied the two ends together in a cute little bow over Batman's hip.

"No," Batman said firmly, but Clark noticed he didn't move to untie it.

"Sucks to be you," Clark beamed. "Up we go!"

To keep from jostling his battered friend, Superman floated them above the floor by a few inches and, carrying Bruce Wayne bridal style, glided up the stairs.

"Left or right?"

"Left. Last door at the end."

Clark followed the direction and opened the door to the darkest, most Spartan bedroom he'd ever seen in his life. Grey walls, a huge black four poster, with dark velvet curtains drawn back to reveal the hard, neatly made bed beneath, darkened window, bare, bare, bare walls and a cold grey hardwood floor greeted him.

"Cozy," he said.

"I can't sleep with distractions."

"Are colors, distracting?"

Bruce looked Clark up and down from heavily lidded eyes. "Yes."

"Haha! I guess I walked into that one!" Clark carried Bruce over to the bed, but hesitated.

"It's fine," Bruce said, almost reading his mind.

"But it doesn't look comfortable at all!"

"I don't need comfortable. I just need someplace to sleep."

Clark thought of Ma Kent and the quilts she made whenever she had a moment to spare. She gave them to little old men and women in the town to warm them up, and kids in the Smallville pediatric ward. She spread them across homeless men and women whenever they took a family trip to Wichita or Topeka and put them in the care packages she and Pa sent overseas to a lonely soldier they'd read about in the paper. And a few times, she'd quilted a special blanket just for Clark; a collage of hand-stitched scenes from the farm, a collection of newspaper articles about him she'd managed somehow to screen print on the warm, beige squares, a blue and red one lovingly forming the House El family crest. There was one particular quilt that came to Clark's mind when he looked at the stark, rigid bed. It was the one he'd put on his own bed in Metropolis, usually at his feet, but sometimes, when he was sad or homesick, Clark pulled the quilt up to his chin and tried to catch the scent of his mom as she had pulled the quilt over his shoulders and kissed him goodnight in his warm, soft, cozy, cozy bed every night as a kid.

"This won't do," he said to Bruce. "This won't do at all." He arranged the pillows with one hand to frame a comfortable space for Bruce- "You only have two pillows?" "I only need two."- and laid him down gently.

He opened the window and set one foot on the little balcony. "Don't move, I'll be right back."

Bruce's eyes widened. "Don't-!" But Clark was a dozen miles away before Bruce finished: "-go!"

The further Superman got away from Batman, the faster and stronger he got. The kryptonite he'd absorbed into his blood was still potent enough to affect Clark, though not catastrophically. As he wondered what he could do about that, he nearly overshot Metropolis, and he had to circle his apartment too fast to see it very clearly at all. But he landed, too loudly for his comfort, on his fire escape and tore off his suit before anyone could notice Superman climbing through Clark Kent's unlocked window. He blew around his apartment to collect every pillow from his bed and his sofa, a bag of cookies Ma had sent in her last care package, and the best darn quilt in North America, in Clark's unbiased opinion. Ten seconds later, Clark was climbed back into Bruce's bedroom just in time to point and shout "No!" at the man slowly pulling himself out of his bed.

Bruce scoffed. "I'm just getting a glass of water."

So Clark set down his set of pillows, chocolate cookies and the quilt to pick Bruce up by the backs of his neck and legs to straighten him out and lie him down gently. "I told you, I'll get you anything you want. Hold still, I brought pillows."

Bruce couldn't manage a single protest before Clark had stuffed his fluffy and soft pillows under Bruce's head and every joint. He stiffened at the unexpected contact, but when he relaxed, Bruce _sank_ into the pillows.

"Oh," he said in surprise, and Clark alone could hear the concealed pleasure in his voice. Clark smiled as he pulled his quilt over Bruce's shoulders.

"Ice?"

"Please."

When Clark flew back into the room with a cold, clear glass of water, he caught Bruce examining the quilt.

"Ma made that for me," he said with the barest touch of pride. "Back when I was a kid. But she made it big enough that I could use even after I got older. Is it warm enough?"

Bruce carefully brought each squared heart and quilted name and embroidered corn cob to his face to scrutinize it closer, and Clark felt as though he himself was being intimately studied.

"What happened?" Bruce asked finally, and Clark should have known better than to take such a personal piece of his childhood to the World's Greatest Detective.

Instead of answering, Clark took the quilt from him, shook it lightly and tucked it under the pillows. "I brought cookies, too," he said finally. "Kara helped Ma bake them, so they might be a little too chocolaty for human taste, but they go great with a glass of milk, if you'd like."

"You know I can easily figure out what happened," Bruce said obstinately.

"I know you can," Clark said softly, tracing a beautifully embroidered name in a soft, yellow heart. "But I hope you won't."

Bruce sighed heavily. "As you wish."

The Princess Bride being Ma Kent's single favorite movie of all time, Clark couldn't repress a smirk that made Bruce instantly defensive.

"But I'll expect a favor instead," he snapped.

"I'm all yours until you're better, Bruce."


	3. Chapter 3

**Sorry.**

 **-Cro**

One washed Batmobile, one simmering pot of soup, two work calls as Bruce Wayne's secretary and one prank call to a Barry Allen ("Is your refrigerator running?" "It is now!") later, Clark found himself watching what must be a rare sight even to Alfred: Bruce Wayne, arms spread out messily, mouth wide open, snoring.

With a quiet chuckle, Clark set the steaming cup of tea next to the plate of untouched cookies and sat in the chair beside him.

"I don't think you realize how easy it would be to take a video of you right now," he whispered. "The playboy extraordinaire and fearsome tycoon, Bruce Wayne, snoring like a little kid. I am a journalist, you know. This kind of stuff would go for a thousand dollars a frame at the trash mags." Then he waited to make sure Bruce wasn't just pretending to be asleep.

When Bruce barely stirred, Clark smiled and brushed the formidable Batman's soft hair back and kissed him lightly on the forehead.

"Sweet dreams, Bruce," he purred.

Clark didn't even realize he'd fallen asleep until the cramp in his leg woke him up. He'd slept for about three hours, by the digital clock on the nightstand, kneeling by Bruce's bedside and laying his head upon his arms. So he stretched out his legs and stood up to see if Bruce had kicked a pillow or the quilt off the bed so he could tuck him back in.

But to his surprise, Bruce was sitting up in bed, sipping the now cold peppermint tea.

"Let me heat that up for you."

"It's okay, I don't need it-" But Clark heated it with his eyes up to a pleasant temperature, minding Bruce's bare hands on the cup.

"…thanks," Bruce muttered.

"My pleasure!" Clark grinned. "Can I get you anything? Anything at all?"

Bruce bit his lip and his face flushed, but he remained silent.

"No, no," Clark flustered. "No, don't be shy! Anything you want, I promise! It's just between you and me. What do you want, a book? A dumb book? Another blanket? Do you need to go to the bathroom?"

Bruce huffed through his nose and scowled at the floor. "Maybe…one thing."

"Name it," Clark grinned.

Bruce motioned for Clark to come closer and whispered in his ear.

"Don't laugh." His hot breath tickled Clark's neck.

"O…okay," Clark answered. But before he could register his concern, Bruce's strong, unyielding hands were cupping his face and slowly, as if waiting for Clark to stop him, pulling their lips together.

But Clark didn't stop him. Every single muscle in his body was putty under his bulletproof skin, but not in the sort of sucking, vacuous muscle weakness that comes with kryptonite poisoning, to which he was no doubt more and more exposed the longer Batman's wet breath filled him with warmth and trace amounts of the green poison. But for the moment, Clark _could_ , theoretically, push off the mortal man with his, albeit impressive, mortal strength. But he didn't. Clark would wonder, someday, just why he didn't stop his wounded partner's firm, lightly chapped lips from caressing his own. He'd sit back and think about that moment and wonder why he'd opened his mouth to let Bruce's wet, minty, hot, hot, too hot tongue explore his own. And he'd wonder just how, considering, he had managed to do what he did next.

"Bruce," Clark said, pulling away remorsefully. "We can't."

"Oh," Bruce said, immediately backing away to sit straight against his headboard, flushing a brilliant pink.

"It's not that I don't want to!" Clark clamored.

"Right."

"I do, Bruce, I do want to."

"Yeah."

"But it's just not right, Bruce. I can't take advantage of you like this!"

"Su-what?"

"I mean," Clark despaired, "I gave you pain medication four hours ago! It's still affecting your judgment!"

"The…are you talking about the aspirin?"

Clark grabbed Bruce's hand in both of his own. "I'm so sorry, Bruce!" he cried. "I'll do anything to make it up to you, please forgive me!"

"What?"

"Anything in the world! No, the universe! I promise!"

Bruce's lip twitched, but his expression didn't change. "Anything?"

"Anything at all!"

"Fine," Bruce said, pulling Clark's sloppily tied necktie to himself, watching Clark's face for a shade of revulsion. "Kiss me."

"What?" Only surprise, and barely concealed longing.

"Aspirin doesn't affect judgment, you dope," Bruce explained. "It's an anti-inflammatory. It treats pain by reducing inflammation, not by messing with the brain, and it _barely_ reduce pain for broken bones. I don't even keep opioids in the house anymore, are you really that ignorant about human medicine?"

"You've been in pain this whole time?" Clark blurted in alarm, but Bruce only scoffed.

"You don't think these are the first ribs I've cracked, do you? I'm the Batman, Clark. I've broken more bones than a retired taxidermist. It barely even hurts anymore."

Clark's hands trembled as he fought back several rude instincts. "So…I didn't drug you and take advantage of you?"

Bruce twirled the steel grey tie coyly between his fingers. "If anything, I took advantage of you. I shouldn't have used your unquestioning compliance to make my move. Forgive me." It wasn't a question, just a statement of fact, and one happily accepted as Clark kissed Bruce so hard, it took his breath away.

A gentle moan escaped Clark's throat and Bruce responded by pulling him onto the bed by his necktie, pushing him onto his back and straddling his hips- all, Clark noted, without detaching a single atom from his mouth. He tried desperately to ignore certain parts of Bruce's body that were demanding attention, but when Bruce broke away with a wet "pop" and ground down against Clark's, he had to slap a hand to his mouth to stifle his cry.

"You're hurt," he gasped. "We can't- _I_ can't… you're _hurt!_ "

"And whose fault is that?" Bruce growled, grinding harder against Clark's groin, eliciting a long, embarrassing moan not even Superman could catch in time. "I told you, didn't I? I told you I could develop a vaccination for you. I told you I could dedicate a legion of chemists to fixing your kryptonite allergy."

An image of Superman smashing Batman against a wall and kissing him too hard to draw breath played through Clark's mind. Of him not being able to stop if the world depended on him. Of an all-powerful beast, a god among men, hurting Bruce Wayne, not stopping in time, not even trying to. He shuddered.

"I need a weakness. You know that better than anyone."

"I'll find another," Bruce hummed, licking Clark's neck. "One that only I know. One that that bastard could never find. I'll find it and I'll hold it over your head if you ever tried to run away."

Dammit. The quilt.

As if reading his mind, Bruce sat up, grabbed Clark's mother's quilt and folded it carefully and deliberately before tossing it onto the chair beside the bed.

And in that moment, Clark could have married that man.

"I'm going to find another weakness," Bruce promised. "And when I do, you'll never have to fear the likes of Lex Luthor again. Never."

Clark responded by running his hands up and down Bruce's thighs, up to his tight, muscled butt. "And in the meantime," Clark rumbled, "Promise me you won't jump in front of anything that can kill you, not for me or anyone else."

"No," Gotham's Dark Knight crooned, pushing into Clark's hands and pressing his forehead into the strong, jumping thuds right below that chiseled collarbone. "If I think that you're in danger of so much as a paper cut, I will stop it however I can, no matter what. You're mine," he hissed possessively. "And nothing, _nothing_ is going to take you from me."

But there was nothing in that shameless statement to be afraid of, because when Batman claims you, though the world may be against you, you can't help but trust that he will protect you. No matter the danger, Batman will come for you and save you, because you're _his_ and he _can_. He'd claimed Gotham, and he bloodied his fists on her foes every night to protect her.

Clark understood and he wondered if all the times they'd fought each other, razing whole city blocks, and fought together, bringing any foe that dared to his knees, and argued about how to apprehend Zod, and stayed all night in the Watch Tower without speaking a single word, and catching each other when they fall, if every moment had really been leading up to this: to Clark Kent cupping Bruce Wayne's taut haunches while the Blight of Gotham's Underbelly ground his groin against and around Superman's in long, languid strokes and quick little circles, while Clark groaned and Bruce panted into his chin, now biting, now licking, now leaning forward and kissing his alien lips until Clark saw stars. He wondered now if all of that was just the process of falling in love, stretched over years and worlds, and he tried to spell it with his fingers.

Bruce pulled away abruptly, letting Clark's spittle linger on his lips. "Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and fell in love with you right now?"

Clark's heart staggered. "Yes," he said too eagerly. "Loads and loads of time. Ages that can be better spent doing lots and lots of other things! Go for it. Fall in love with me, Bruce!"

"Hmm," Bruce hummed in pleasure. "Nah." He rolled off the dumbstruck alien into his cocoon of pillows.

"What?" Clark felt as though he'd jumped up the stairs only to find that the floor was missing. His mind careened. "I thought…"

"You thought I was that easily won?" Bruce smirked. "You didn't even try to woo me."

"Woo…?"

"I'm an old fashioned guy, Clark. I need flowers and chocolates and goodnight kisses."

Ma Kent would smack Clark on the back of the head if she'd heard him jump so suddenly into the "L" word, and remembering himself, he jumped off the bed.

"R-right!" he blushed violently and straightened the mess of his tie. "Right. S…sorry."

If he had dared to look at Bruce Wayne's face at that moment, he would have seen the triumphant smirk that would let him off the hook. But he didn't, and he wasn't.

"Is there… is there anything else I can get you, Mr Wayne?"

Taken a little aback, Bruce straightened himself on his pillows. "Not just now, Mr Kent. The guest bedroom is the next door down. Please feel free."

The knot in his stomach vanished at that. He could stay! "If you need anything," he grinned, "don't hesitate to call me. I'm all yours."

Bruce chewed on the thought before he said it: "And if I _want_ anything?"

"As you wish."

Bruce would have grinned if he wasn't playing hard to get. "That will be all, Mr Kent. Goodnight."

Clark Kent smiled and, to Bruce's shock, bent over the bed to kiss him, virginally, on the mouth.

"Goodnight, Mr Wayne," he whispered on Bruce's lips. "Roses or lilies?"

"Nice try, Mr Kent. I'm not making it _that_ easy for you."

"Then I look forward to you fighting me at every turn, now that I've seen what's on the other side. Get ready to falling in love with me, Bruce."

And with that, Clark left the room, because if he had to be subjected to that flushed, indignant, _hungry_ stare for even one moment more, he felt that he might give into his urges and cover that man's entire, beautiful body with rude, adoring, angry kisses, and he wanted to do it right.

But his restraint didn't stop him from hearing the bewildered mutter as he closed the door: "So do I, Clark. So do I."

 **Right. The quilt. The Superman backstory is as varied as, say, Marvel's Spider-Man (who is superior to every single character in the DC universe, fight me,) so I picked and chose which parts of which iterations to keep. In half of the Kent storylines, his Pa, Jonathan Kent, is dead. In half of them, Kara Zor-El doesn't hang out with Ma and Pa Kent (and in the Golden Age, which I tend to prefer usually, her whole storyline was about her unrequited love for her cousin, which, I mean, come on, DC.) So this is the multiverse where Jonathan is dead, Ma Kent is Kara's surrogate aunt/grandma, and Superboy ran away from home when he was younger because of reasons I might write about in a prequel to this fic but, suffice it to say, are very much in character for Mr Martyr Complex.**

 **Also, both Bruce's and Clark's moms are named Martha. What's up, DC, time to get some new names.**


End file.
